When the revolution came for Amy Cuddy

[BurnA]

Interesting article about social psychology and the replication issue.

Belongs in Other News but that forum isn't open yet. Andrew Gelman gets a mention.

https://nyti.ms/2zjnPJ5

When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy
As a young social psychologist, she played by the rules and won big: an influential study, a viral TED talk, a prestigious job at Harvard. Then, suddenly, the rules changed.

 

[Snowdrop]

I like the line: "Behavioural Priming: It's all in the mind, but who's mind"

Wish I'd thought of that tag line for the BPS group and whatshername's book. Who's mind indeed.

 

[BurnA]

It's odd the way the article states "then suddenly the rules changed"
As if, all of a sudden the concept good science was introduced to the world.

 

[Woolie]

You're right, @BurnA, the rules didn't change. Its just people have got sick of dodgy studies that adhere to the letter of the law (no outright fraud), but not its spirit. FFS, you shouldn't need to be told what the 'rules' are, you should know from your training how to avoid doing bad science. Too many people have been getting away with exploiting science's loopholes for too long.

The Amy Cuddy controversy has been HUGE in Psychology. It sparked the whole 'methodological terrorism' debate. Amy got rich and famous on the basis of some pretty dodgy findings that no-one could replicate. Susan Fiske, Amy Cuddy's supervisor, retaliated by describing the critics of Amy's work as "methodological terrorists".

Andrew Gelman famously responded with this:

Methodological terrorism is when you publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, its claim is supported by a statistically significant t statistic of 5.03, and someone looks at your numbers, figures out that the correct value is 1.8, and then posts that correction on social media.

Terrorism is when somebody blows shit up and tries to kill you.

Other articles about the furore:
Scientists are furious after a famous psychologist accused her peers of 'methodological terrorism'
Three Cheers for Methodological Terrorists